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Life is hard. So what?
By: Pat
O'Reilly
 Some people think life is
difficult, mysterious and complicated. I disagree. I think
life is about change and the choices we make in regard to that
change. For the better part of this past year I have been
fighting the breakup of my relationship. I could not believe
it could happen to me, the one that tells others how to have a
happy life. I wrote the book on living well with adversity,
how could my life get so far out of balance? I overcame great
odds in managing a life that was defined by catastrophic
illness, chronic pain and adversity. I always thought my
relationship was Gods reward for doing good work in helping
others overcome the numbers. Boy, the lesson here is don't
ever think you have it all together because as soon as you do
the universe will kick you in the rump and say "Get off your
high horse and back into the trenches!" And so it
is...
By
finally accepting that life is about change I was finally able
to put the past behind me and look to the future to see the
wonderful road that is opening up for me that I will travel
from this day forward. And, I can finally make the solid
choices about what my life will look like as a single woman
trying to give purpose to her life in writing and speaking to
others about living with pain.
When
your body has decided that chronic pain will be a permanent
part of your life it immediately caused changes that you must
adapt to if you are to keep your head level. Accepting the
change is a tall hill to climb. Adapting to living with pain
is much like adapting to a new life after a relationship falls
apart. At first we try to deny it. As time goes on we
begin to see that we may not have the power to set things
right again. Slowly, we begin to adapt to the changes pain
brings and if we make the right choices at this stage we will
find a new viewpoint on life; and it can be one of great
learning and inner vision. Change is not a bad thing. Only the
choices we make in regard to the change can make it a negative
experience. If we look for it, there is great wisdom in change
and as we grow we become deeper and more compassionate people.
Ultimately accepting the fact that life is about change and
our job is not to fight, it but to let change carry us to new
heights, begins the healing process that simplifies life. We
do not need to know the future to have faith in it. Accepting
life is about change gives us faith, and once we have that we
can relax into what ever the next step will be for us. We no
longer have the need to try to control that change, for we
know it will offer us good choices and bad choices and if we
choose the high road each time, our life will continue to
expand in new directions that will be favorable too. Accepting
change and making positive choices gives us our safe place to
fall, our seat with the great divine. Life becomes simple,
easy and less complicated.
Lest
you think I am telling you that if you think right the pain
will diminish or disappear, I am not. My message is one of
eliminating the psychic pain that accompanies the physical
pain, for it is the suffering or psychic pain that destroys
us. If we can get to the point that we stop the negative
feelings that we have in regard to the pain we can once again
find happiness in life. Pain itself is not negative or
positive. We all have many different pains during our life
that do not cause us to be unhappy. But when the pain becomes
relentless and it begins to cause loss in our life we find
ourselves suffering. We can eliminate this suffering.
And, when we do eliminate the suffering, after a time we may
also find that our brain produces less pain messages and our
physical pain can also diminish. Many people do not realize
this point. Psychic pain causes physical pain and physical
pain causes suffering that causes even more pain. It does not
matter if your pain originated with illness or injury, once
you experience suffering in relation to the pain, the body
generates even more pain and you begin the merry-go-round of
life with chronic pain. This cycle must be stopped if you are
to reduce pain. The right choices must be made, attended to
and followed through with.
The
first right choice to make is to eliminate the self-talk that
we generate about our pain. Self-talk is self-fulfilling
prophecy. You become what you think about. If your brain is
chattering on about what the pain is doing to your body, that
chatter will manifest in your body. Spend a few days listening
in on your self-talk. Do you find it running in the "poor me"
routine? If so, you are manifesting more pain messages. "Poor
me" makes the pain increase and the pain then makes further
changes in the body that will cause more pain and other
problems. You cannot afford "poor me" self-talk. More
information on this is at:
www.painmanagementtheory.homestead.com/cog1.html
In the
future we will talk more about making the right choices to
live the best life possible even when we live with
pain.
Pat
Oreilly, 2002
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